From 1975 to 1984,
the Crazy Canucks defined
what it meant to be the best in the world,
mostly in downhill, but it defined it
because they were individuals who worked together,
who pushed each other,
who encouraged and empowered each other
to beat whatever came their way,
regardless of the size of the team,
the budgets or the support they had.
It was five guys making and taking the world
to a new level of excellence in alpine ski racing.
Hello, Steve here.
Yes, I'm one of the Crazy Canucks,
the Canadian ski team that started
maybe with nothing
and ended up having to be the very best in the world.
I think everybody had different strengths
and different weaknesses.
What happened is we complemented each other.
Dave Irwin was very competitive,
he would never slow down.
Dave Murray was more thoughtful,
he would look at things from a different point of view.
Ken took things in a very ambitious and number side.
He really looked at statistics.
And I was very technical,
I really looked strongly
at the approach to the race in the hill.
There was also another man who was what we call
the original Crazy Canuck, Jungle Jim Hunter.
He was just an amazing skier,
so each of us brought a strength
and we complemented each other.
Hello, Jim Hunter.
Here I was, an 18-year-old
that was now the number one skier in Canada.
And I'm "The National Ski Team".
They added a bunch of young guys with me,
but very few of them
had the determination and the will to do it.
And, in a sense,
I set the bar for what it meant to be on the national team.
We didn't have a lot of money,
we didn't have a lot of coaches,
we didn't have a lot of support,
but we did have the leadership that understood
that we had to help each other.
And none of us could have made it alone,
we had to make it by helping each other be better
and I think that that's really why the Crazy Canucks are so,
to this day, remembered and endeared.
Hello, you're calling early.
Innsbruck was a very important Olympics for the Crazy Canucks.
That was our first Olympics.
We'd been around on the World Cup tour,
but Innsbruck was the first we'd all had been in.
I would say that the Crazy Canucks
were just beginning to become a real force in Alpine skiing.
Hello, I'm Ken Read.
That was our first year as a group that we collectively
were competitive.
People didn't think Canadians had that skill set
to be able to ski amongst the best in the world.
The funny thing that emerged was that
because of the intense rivalries
that go on in the Alps,
especially Switzerland and Austria, amongst the big five,
that we were outside of that.
We were a new force that came in as a team
and so we became everybody's second favourite.
We put radios at the start, we put a radio at the finish,
the coach was on the course.
We weren't like the other teams
that had multiple coaches all over the course.
We just helped each other,
and when we saw something that would help each other,
we told each other.
We, in essence, were racers coaching racers.
We were looking for speed in places
that others weren't looking.
And so when you tried something new,
sometimes it doesn't work.
And the penalty in alpine ski racing
is that you have a crash.
So yes, we were trying things that others wouldn't do.
Sometimes it worked and we'd win,
and sometimes it didn't work and we'd fall.
I've probably had... I don't even know how many I've had,
eight or ten head injuries.
But I've had three severe head injuries.
That's interesting how I'm still recovering now,
and I know I've recovered 100%,
except for that 20-year memory loss which I had,
it's gone, I'll never get it.
We took chances that most other racers wouldn't take.
But we survived
and I'm grateful that we all survived.
If you look at the five of us, we all had personality,
and most athletes don't have that.
In fact, I'd say that's what's missing
from most of international sport
and certainly professional sport today.
Our outcome of having three in the top ten,
fifth, eighth, tenth, was, erm...bittersweet.
We felt we could have done better,
but we knew as a team that we had done our country proud.
As an athlete, I had a bitter regret
that I hadn't taken that little extra risk
to try to push for the medal,
and that was the difference between first and fifth.
Steve Podborski actually didn't race in Innsbruck
cos he was hurt.
Dave Irwin finished eighth, which was very commendable
given that he had been off the circuit nearly a month.
Jim finished tenth.
And Dave Murray, I think, finished 13th or 15th
or somewhere around there.
He was a little bit disappointed
with his performance.
It was after that that things changed.
And they did change.
I don't want to pretend that we were friends from then on,
from then on, it was like I was a different guy
and they were over here and I was over there.
Nobody did that on purpose, it was just the way it took place.
I look back at my years with the Crazy Canucks
with a great deal of pride.
Because we were able to set a new standard
of skiing in Canada and worldwide.
We were able to have an influence on our sport
and become part of its culture and its history.
It proved that Canadians could be competitive
in men's sport and in particular
at alpine ski racing.
(FROM 1974 TO 1984)
(THE CRAZY CANUCKS WON A TOTAL OF 39 WORLD CUP PODIUMS)
(KEN READ BECAME THE FIRST NORTH AMERICAN ALPINE SKIER)
(TO WIN A WORLD CUP DOWNHILL RACE)
(STEVE PODBORSKI'S BRONZE WAS THE ONLY OLYMPIC MEDAL
(THE CRAZY CANUCKS EVER ACHIEVED)